YO, CONFEDERATES!! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?

THE ECONOMIC MYSTERY IN LIGHT OF ECONOMIC ADVANTAGES OF THE NORTH OVER THE SOUTH, IT SEEMS IN RETROSPECT ALMOST IRRATIONAL FOR THE SOUTH TO HAVE ENGAGED THE NORTH MILITARILY. WHY DID THE SOUTH SECEDE?

ECONOMIC CONCEPTS: ALTERNATIVES, BENEFITS, COSTS

WAS THE SOUTH IRRATIONAL TO FIGHT THE CIVIL WAR? IN GO DOWN, MOSES (1942), WILLIAM FAULKNER WROTE: WHO ELSE WOULD HAVE DECLARED A WAR AGAINST A POWER WITH 10 TIMES THE AREA, 100 TIMES THE MEN, AND 1,000 TIMES THE RESOURCES?

ADVANTAGES OF THE NORTH The North had a population of 22 million The South had a population of 9 million, which included 3.5 million slaves. The North had 92% of the nation’s industries The North had 22,000 miles of railroad track. The South had 9000 The North controlled the U.S. Navy and the Merchant Marine

ADVANTAGES OF THE SOUTH The South had a clear war objective-to win independence. The South needed to fight only to defend its territory. The North had to carry out an invasion. The South had a strong military tradition. Many U.S. Army and Navy officers had been recruited from the South. Great arsenals and army bases were located in the South. The South believed that its cotton trade with Great Britain and France would cause these nations to provide aid to the Confederacy.

IT IS HARDLY SURPRISING THAT SOUTHERN SLAVEOWNERS WERE OPTIMISTIC ABOUT THE ECONOMIC FUTURE OF THEIR REGION

Table 1 The Fraction of Whites' Incomes from Slavery StatePercent of the Population That Were Slaves Per Capita Earnings of Free Whites (in dollars) Slave Earnings per Free White (in dollars) Fraction of Earnings Due to Slavery Alabama South Carolina Florida Georgia Mississippi Louisiana Texas Seven Cotton States North Carolina Tennessee Arkansas Virginia All 11 States Source: Computed from data in Gerald Gunderson (1974: 922, Table 1)

By the mid 1830s, cotton shipments accounted for more than half the value of all exports from the United States. Note that there is a marked similarity between the trends in the export of cotton and the rising value of the slave population depicted in Figure 1.

ELIMINATING SLAVERY: ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES AND THEIR PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES Emancipation of the slaves by the owners without compensation Emancipation of the slaves, with compensation paid to the slave owners by the federal government Go to war to maintain or to eliminate slavery

WAS COMPROMISE POSSIBLE? The Missouri Compromise of 1820 admitted Missouri and Maine to the Union. Missouri was a slave state and Maine was a free state. This dual admission allowed the nation to preserve the existing balance between slave states and free states. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 overrode the Missouri Compromise. It authorized voters in portions of the Louisiana Purchase to decide whether or not to permit slavery. In the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Congress could not prohibit slavery in any U.S. territories.